The invention is based on an electric potentiometer as generally defined hereinafter. Potentiometers already been proposed in which the width of the moving contact, or wiper, must be kept small so that the wiper will keep to its permissible path of movement over the electrically conductive layer. If the movement path of the wiper deviates from the permissible one, for instance because of necessary manufacturing tolerances, then the wiper will brush over part of the carrier matrial, which is typically of ceramic, and become roughened thereby; as a result, the electrically conductive layer is more quickly worn down by the accordingly roughened wiper.
To attain a nonlinear characterisitc curve, the electrically conductive layer has different widths in the course of the movement direction of the wiper, such that the width of the electrically conductive layer initially increases, from the initial position of the wiper through an increasing angle of wiper deflection, after which this width is kept constant from a predetermined angle of wiper deflection and on. It is desirable for the upward slope of the characteristic curve of the potentiometer to be as great as possible at small angles of wiper deflection, which can be attained by means of the largest possible ratio between the largest width and the smallest width of the electrically conductive layer. In known potentiometers, however, there are limits to doing this, because in order to avoid sweeping over the carrier material, the width of the wiper must be notably smaller than the smallest width of the electrically conductive layer.